Brokenness
Background: Our key text for this series of devotionals is from Luke 8.1-3. You can listen to the sermon “Inheritance // The Gift of The Gospel” that accompanies it here. This week we are focusing on the contents of the Gospel that Jesus and his disciples were proclaiming. Today’s focus is Fall: Brokeness
Intro Prayer: “Jesus, please help me in this time to be fully present to You and to myself that I may commune with You for the sake of your glory and the world around me.”
Silence: In this time, try and become silent before the Lord both internally and externally for 5 minutes. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to stillness.
Devotional: This week you are going to learn a simple way for understanding and sharing the Gospel- the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Yesterday we learned that the Gospel message starts with Creation: God’s Perfect Design. But we all know that is not the world we live in as we look at our own lives and the headlines of each day. Why is our world so far from what God originally designed?
The Bible points out to us, what has long been called “The Fall.” Mankind, rather than honor God as King and Creator, said, “We want to be our own kings. We want to be our own creators.” And as we made that choice, humanity began to unravel.
Relationship with God was broken, not because God was petty, but because we turned away. Our own souls were fractured as we rejected our God-given identity and purpose. Our relationships with one another also suffered and rather than living in harmony we lived in discord. This isn’t the end of the story, but it is an important part for us to know and understand.
Scripture: Read today’s text slowly. Feed your spirit on the words. Your goal in this time is to commune with Jesus through His Word. Take note as you sense His Presence.
Romans 1.18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 6.23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Worship: Respond to Jesus with worship and repentance today. This week’s song is So Will I by Hillsong. It focuses on all that we are engaging with this week.
Listen: Take time to listen to the Holy Spirit. Write down anything you sense the Lord speaking.
Obedience: What from today is the Lord calling you to put in practice? Could be to pray for someone, to call someone, to serve someone etc. Obedience is our appropriate response to Jesus and the gift of the Gospel.